Chord Progression encyclopedia by genre ? Something straight forward w a lot of content to imprint for new patterns ? I haven't found anything that is similar to this.

Thx in advance !

 

I don't have an answer, but I'd sure like to know, too. ;-) Thanks for posting.

 

http://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab has a lot of that

 

It is a great resource. Ive only used the free version and there is great value. Compared to what imlooking for its a bit time consuming . Im looking for lists of progressions for genres, hopefully even spanning by decade. For people who haven't used hook theory its a great resource if you navigate to *search on their page by song!

 

Wikipedia has a short list of chord progressions but to be honest I find that very scarce and not all are useful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chord_progressions

 

Yeah theyre called... Song books. Youd be better served though if you took that same amount of effort and put it into learning basics of western music. Tonal music. 101, no I cant even call it theory. Stay away from that, even. But just what key signatures consist of, the chord degrees, intervals. How chords and melodies are rooted in and exist in the scales Just memorizing progressions or pulling one out like a math equation, thats not really how it works IMO.

Not to mention the PROCESS of learning it is so much more important than the actual info... That info wont translate into music with soul (or that people will wnt to buy or hear) but your passion driving you to sit down with a piano, piano roll, guitar, your voice, zebra 2, or whatever and learn it, thats what will bleed into the music.

Dont buy in to this current weird ass, pre made loop using, AI assisted false reality.

 

Stop your stupid obsession with "chord progressions". And to copy some from a "chord progression library". And even don't know what a reversal of a chord is. Let alone knowing nothing about voice leading. These beginner idiocies lead to this bullsh1t self made "tracks". That leads to bullcrap music that doesn't deserve the term "music". Get a grasp on how music is constructed. Learn something about functional harmony, modes and harmonic modulations. Then you can make music willingly and by steering at a clear goal, and don't "compose" by accident.

Ready made "chord progressions" are for losers. It's like an illiterate asking for a library of "words" where he can pick some from in hope to build sentences that make any sense.

I think that some people put lots and lots of effort into staying stupid. Because learning cripples their "creativity". Creativity = copying "chord progressions" from a library.

Facepalm.

 

Last edited: Nov 12, 2024

@BlackHawk

you have to start somewhere.

 

Straight up. We've put so much emphasis these days, in every corner of every human endeavor, on outcome above all else. As a result, we've completely dismissed/undervalued the process of things. This is one of the reasons why AI tools are, and will continue to be, so blindly and widely accepted.

The process of things is how you can even form outcomes with integrity, or outcomes of any value for that matter.

I guess people forget that this is still "music" that you're doing.

 

Yeah and you should "start somewhere" with an instrument of some sort tbh I think that is invaluable in the long run

 

Last edited: Nov 12, 2024

Don't listen to these guys. I bet they're afraid of being rendered obsolete in the face of things like chord dictionaries, composing apps and especially AI, so they cling to the way they did it. Now, I did it the way they did it too - learning theory, practicing piano, etc., and I'm sure I find writing songs much more satisfying than I would if I just copied chord progressions without knowing more of what I was doing, but there's no one right way for everyone, and if you're good at creating melodies (which many are bad at, no matter how much technical knowledge they possess), then you can write terrific songs without much technical knowledge - after all, there are great songs written with only two chords. So go your own way. If you find pre-made chord progressions don't work for you, learn enough theory to put together your own.

 

This logic is so stupid. You could give an illiterate random words (singular chord), and he may not know how to make a sentence. If you give him sentences (chord progression), he will be able to make sentences lol. There are many reasons to use ready made chord progressions. Inspiration, education, replaying them using a midi sampler, etc.

If you creativity ends at the chord progression, your songs must be extremely boring. What are they, just four bar loops of a piano playing a progression? There is tons of room for creativity after a progression is established.

All of this hate against using midi is just idiotic. Who cares?! if you take inspiration from something, or it helps you achieve the musical vision you imagine, go for it. OP, im not sure of any particular database, but Scaler 2 plugin has a large amount of genres within it. Many of them are true to genre, with voicings and progressions that make sense for that genre.

 

You'll probably get a shit ton of hate for this comment but it isn't far from the truth. We seem to forget "music" is the intended outcome here. The 7 second instant gratification culture has been such a poison that people demand an outcome so instantaneously that you would trade knowledge and capability for it and learn nothing along the way and at the end of the day when that "outcome" is made you have gained 0% increase in self sustained capability.

"Learning cripples creativity" is the craziest shit I've ever heard but unfortunately I have heard it. You can only be truly and freely creative when there isn't direct thought needed about the delivery procedure/methodology, only the feeling that's intended to be conveyed. That only comes with surrendering yourself to the study of the craft. This is true amongst all things.

I wouldn't get too hung up about it, people meant for it will understand this either inherently or eventually. Unfortunately, the beauty in the fulfillment of a man and the dedication to his craft isn't conveyed much anymore and has lost it's value in the eyes of many across all endeavors.

Yes, this could be assumed an overreaction or unnecessary given the situation at hand about just asking for chord progressions and you would probably be correct in thinking that. However, as a microcosm of the current climate at large, it's an undeniable truth.

I truly don't really have that much of an issue with OP tbh just making macro observations.

To OP, if you're going to seek out chord progressions in this way, at the least I would look them up as chord tones/degrees (ii-V7-I, etc etc etc) and not as the specific tonalities. It will help you in the long run tremendously because you will start to hear the qualities different intervalic relationships possess and you will become faster in what you're looking for instead of tediously searching thru random progressions/patterns without vision.

 

Last edited: Nov 12, 2024

chord progressions are good to study about some genre or artist , but imo not to compose, not to start a song

this is a great advice

you dont need to know how to read sheet music, but the basics are... the basics.

 

what is the use case for generative AI in music (we're not talking about mvsep now)?

Ok I made a meme with Suno once, showed it to my friends, we giggled. Maybe it will replace for some deaf people their occasional "beat", under which they eat, work and copulate.

Do you know that in past centuries (specifically Renaissance and Baroque) music were used to transport a message? To have a conversation, a dialogue? A think not often to be observed these days. Nevertheless, recently we had a New Orleans-style of jazz concert, big orchestra, mostly brass, Jesus - they were talking to me!

Anyway... You know why music doesent serve the communication purpose anymore? Because of the globalization. You can't just make a statement for whole lot of people without degrading the content. That's where we entered "the era of a soundtrack" (same reason I don't really like ballet music). Easily reproducible, nearly identical tunes, ideas, with same messages for people who live every. Day. The same.

No wonder Ai could replace this shit. thank god, and good riddance!

 

take a random chord progression by the beatles per day and make tracks in any genre you want, all are on youtube

they wrote hundreds of chord progressions so you have a lifetime "encyclopedia" to work with

no risk of copyright strike to clone a chord progression.

do it with one random song to experiment then come back and thank me later

 

Generative AI - layering, chopping, one shot generation, ear candy, sampling, tons of uses, whats not to like?

If music is not talking to you, that doesnt mean its true for everyone. Every time im at a rave the music speaks to me, give me some live analog dub techno lol. Its also still used as communication. Especially dance music.

 

Good thing I don't have to talk to any of you people xD

 

Knowing the Harmony/Theory to Understand and/or Create chord progressions is positive and necessary.

However the OP request is not completely out of this world.
It would be very useful and interesting to have a Compendium of Chord Progressions..
perhaps similar to that "Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns", but with chords.. Right?

Well.. alas that doesn't exist because:
The number of possibilities is Infinite.
And not only Harmony is involved, but also Rhythm and the Perception of Time.

For instance:
When playing a chord chord progression, the Time that you stay in a chord also affects Perception and thus Direction.

If we were to compile all possible Chord Progressions,
in view of the infinite possibilities that Time offers, it will be pretty much infinite.

Also take in account Complex Time Signatures, (chord progressions will work differently in say 5/4 7/8 or 11/8..)
and the infinite amount of possibilities there is in Time/Rhythm..

And you will have to add that to all the possible Harmonic bases/tonalities,
and all Harmonic modulation possibilities for each of them, in each single moment/chord..

You see, all of this goes very soon to Infinity.

So No -> There's no available true compendiums of Chord Progressions that will cover any serious base..


-The best in the end is to Culture yourself..

Learn the Theory and Harmony by heart, all you can.
Learn the Modes by heart and know how to use them.

Then take music that you like, and Analyze it..

Analize all the basic stuff.
Or get a Real/Fake Book and try to understand where those chord progressions come from..

Pretty soon you'll start to see the interesting things they did chord-wise.
Take good note of it; you can probably find harmonic analysis of those standards online too..

There's a quantity of material you're gonna compile,
but very soon you'll realize -> what matters is Understanding it.

If you can understand other ppl's chord progressions, you can get a sense of what and why..
Understanding Theory and Harmony, you can ponder the harmonic possibilities each tonality will offer..

then all you need to do is > Create your Own

 

Last edited: Nov 12, 2024

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